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(Diary entry from November 19th. 'A month to go').
I gave I my notice last week. I have done this several times in my life, but this time was different. Very different. The feeling that I was giving up a job that is undemanding, and that would carry me along the path to a secure, if quiet retirement in a few years time certainly set me thinking.
I already have a pension from my civil service days to come. Not enough to live on, but payable from next summer and index linked. The second pension from the council years, plus the normal UK old age pension would leave us quite comfortably off. But probably quite dull as well. I remember 'quite dull'.
Back in 1999, following the offer on the house in Bonen, Chris left the family to live in London. I became a single parent. This was a state I had never contemplated, and I hated every moment. It wasn't that I couldn't cope or had any financial problems, more the realisation of what such a hackneyed phrase really means.
I learnt so much over the next year or so. How awkward it felt waiting for Lucy to choose clothes in shops, which seemed to be filled with
(very) young teenagers and very young looking mums. And music which grated, with its incessant beat and banal
lyrics (You call Guns 'n Roses lyrics banal? I guess CID work
leaves its mark. I'm glad I could never work them out until I read
the sleeve notes. Glad we didn't have daughters). I felt very old, made worse by the careful and surreptitious looks coming my way. I avoided wearing a mac at all times, but never quite came to terms with the thought that I may look like a potential child molester!
I became excessively tidy and house-proud. I made huge efforts in the garden [never a favourite hobby], and had a regime in the house that would have made a training sergeant proud.
I had also decided to continue buying the French house. It was, after all, my dream, and with all the 'new' things to do in my life, seemed just one more. My son Robert accompanied me to the Notaire for the final sale. I had been quite happy to use the vendors' Notaire, but she is female. It gave me a little trouble with her correct title. My French at the time was limited to schoolboy/tourist phrases, and coping with the legal jargon challenging. Couple that with the gender bending of the correct form of address, and we had an amusing day.
Unlike the horror stories I have heard, we found the whole process straightforward and interesting. We have never had other than the most delightful, co-operative dealings with French officialdom. The bureaucracy, although extensive and somewhat repetitive, has a certain reassurance once the paperwork has been assembled.
(I agree. Partly, it's the generally helpful attitude of the
French officials, particularly at the local level. A French Mairie
and my memories of UK local council offices come from different
planets).
Robert and I particularly like the bit where it was agreed that 'everything was above the table'. The formalities over, it being early December, we presented our Notaire with a bottle of malt, and the three vendors with small blue china tubs. They contained something, which I knew the French would appreciate, as they don't seem to go in for such delicacies. Stilton. It seemed the thing to do!
I was back for a clearance session on Boxing Day. I saw the start of the new millennium in a haze of Bordeaux and
Pastis. I had joined the session at the bar early in the evening, and my
(French) neighbour and his friends insisted I continue the session in his kitchen. I think this was the point at which I knew I had made the right decisions.
I was alone for the first time in over 30 years, in a strange land, camping in a house which at least had hot water and a heating system. And strangely, quite content. And then Chris rang from a party. She honestly wanted to wish me a good new year, but it brought a flood of anger which took me a year to deal with. The divorce took just a few weeks.
We are going to take our cats with us. This has been decided at the family conference. We have two delightful cats. Sophie is jet black, and in a permanent state of 'phantom' pregnancy. She was spayed after two litters of kittens, and was pregnant yet again at the time. It seems to have left her thinking that is the normal condition. She collects sponges overnight, carefully placing them on a cushion in a quiet corner. Then at dawn, she calls to them. It is a very weird sound, but then she is a very weird cat. Her companion is Fraggle. She was my eldest
daughter Trish's cat. She has six toes, (claws) on each paw. She would have been better named 'bigfoot', but her huge feet don't stop her climbing. She climbs anything, curtains, walls, legs..... Ouch.
We got in touch with the French Embassy. They have an excellent website full of useful information on emigrating to, or even just visiting, France. The cats need a Vets report of good health. No jabs for Brittany, nothing but a clean bill of health signed by a [approved] vet within five days of travelling. But do DEFRA [formerly MAFF] heed this? Why do I ask? Of course they don't read the EU regs in the same way as the French, or probably anyone else for all I know. Our own ministry insist on tattoo or microdot implant for I.D. The French would be happy with a description and declaration.
I am known, sometimes, to take officials head-on .I can get quite acid with some of them. Wiser heads have prevailed. We have had the cats 'chipped'. They were delicious.
* * *
If you want to congratulate or encourage him (or sympathise
with Chris and Lucy) e-mail me with
your thoughts or advice, or better still, write to the Notice
Board.
Have fun.
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